I have just fished out of the loft a boxful of old CH paperwork. It includes programmes for Castles in the Air, Jungle Book, Noyes Fludde, and lots of others. I also have on VCR the TV 'Down Your Way' programme featuring Bodywork including shots of Maria rehearsing the Appendix part with Richard Stilgoe - I used to bring it out to scare boyfriends!! JJT was involved some years ago with rehearsals for an NYMT production of Pendragon which took place (the rehearsals) at our local community arts centre. By a strange coincidence it is just being revived with children from local schools at the Rose Theatre in Kingston.

I started as an usher/merchandise at the Palladium (?89 ish I think) then FOH at various others including a bit of management at the Royalty then Box Office mainly at the Lyric but when they computerised I ended up in the phone room so I got fed up & left to work for the Chippendales

Did that for about 6 months (happy days ) and then went freelance as an adminstrator working with a consultant based in Teddington until I finally went to Uni in 94 to get a certificate to prove I could do the job I was doing! Did a semester in Finland, met H2B, graduated in 97, worked admin at De Montfort Hall for a few years, then it all went horribly wrong and I ended up as a Letting Agent!!

A 1986 version of The Birthday Party was part of it and it reminded me that my introduction to Pinter was a CH production in Big School featuring an excellent performance from Peter Bastick as Stanley.

I remember from my squits David Newell (then second monitor) playing Salieri in Amadeus - amazing...

I was in three plays at the theatre... one was Peer Gynt (the junior play) that had been truncated from its original length of 3 and half days to a much more manageable (but still very boring and unintelligable) 2.5 hours. I played a priest and said the same thing at the start of the first act and at the second... memorable only because I remember someone counting the number of times Mr Ward took his glasses off and put them on again in one rehearsal...

The second was on my UF - Orpheus and the Underworld - a DNP spectaular - we had a sloping stage, a cast of 130 (me in the chorus right at the back trying not to do the Can Can), Tom Jeffers in leather on a motorbike, a singing headmaster and a squit who broke her arm falling into the orchestra pit...

The third was on my Deps (I thought I had got out of acting by then!) but my friend Tim Edwards persuaded us to put on a performance of Terry Pratchet's Mort. It was only the second time it had been done and was a bit of comic farce from start to finish... It was notable because Matt Holliday (who played Death) had a full mask on and had a throat mike in order he COULD SPEAK IN CAPITALS - no one from his house knew it was him!

We had a lot of G&S in my time at CH
I remember that the brilliant Mr Malins produced "'Omlet" in my last year, in which I played Polonius,
the review, states "A shrewd piece of casting -- as a buffoon !" -- now i ask you
The whole Cast were taken to see a "Famous Actor" (Whose name now escapes me ! ) playing Omlet,---and this was quite exceptional expense for CH during the War !

I was in a Barnes B house play where I played a fat woman addicted to chartreuse. The ladies clothes I had to wear including a bra the size of 2 parachutes smelt musty. Then in Peele B I was in "One Way Pendulum" playing a singing weighing machine and performed the play stuck inside a number of painted cardboard boxes - How I suffered for my art!
Then Duncan Noel Paton arrived and I was in "Indians" (in Big School) where I first heard "Metal Guru" by T Rex, and later on was in "Cain" in the brand new theatre). I still have the dreadful record. It was all good fun

Hey Dick - would you like to see what Rory looks like now? I was sent a photo of him recently. He's a died in the wool smoker and doesn't give a monkeys about the health implications! If you send me your email address I'll send it to you. (info@robinft.co.uk)

huntertitus wrote:Hey Dick - would you like to see what Rory looks like now? I was sent a photo of him recently. He's a died in the wool smoker and doesn't give a monkeys about the health implications! If you send me your email address I'll send it to you. (info@robinft.co.uk)